This is the journal of my endeavours to grow a range of fruit, veg and flowers from seed, grow organically, and my attempts to create a personal paradise with 1/2 acre of maintained gardens and 1/2 acre wild meadows. Northern Ireland's average daily high temperatures are 18 °C (64 °F) in July and 6 °C (43 °F) in January. Soil type: Clay

Friday 13 July 2012

Tomato Update

This is my second year growing tomatoes. Last year I had a decent harvest but, of course, every year my aim is to improve upon the previous year. Last year my goal was to get to grips with training the tomato plant and pinching out side shoots - tasks that seem odd but apparently have to be done. This year my aim is to produce a higher yield. Below is a snapshot of how the tomatoes are progressing to date.

I'm growing two varieties:
Tomato (Red Cherry), Mr Fothergill's seeds; sown indoor 8 April 2012.
Tomato 'Gardener's Delight', Thompson Morgan seeds; sown indoor 8 April 2012.

'Gardener's Delight',
Above and below -six days later a tomato appears.
My supports are simply bamboo canes tied together. 
Something I've noticed which seems odd to me - the tomato flowers only seem to develop from mid-way up the plants and seem to prefer developing higher up the plant.  I thought maybe there's less light lower down that affects flower development. However the sun room is a very bright room with lots of warmth and light.  Anyone have any ideas why flowers don't develop lower down on the plants?

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

11 comments:

  1. You're doing well if your tomatoes are outside. It could be that the night time temperatures were too low when the tomatoes were younger and so they didn't flower at that stage in the plants growth.

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  2. Your tomatoes are much taller than mine, and further on too. Mine are only just starting to produce flowers, I don't hold out much hope of the fruit having time to ripen this year.

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  3. I'm always a little surprised by how far up the plants the first flowers are but I've never really decided exactly what the cause is. In a normal year we still get plenty of ripe toms so I don't worry about it. Our plants are just starting to flower so you're in front of us.

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  4. Your tomatoes look so neat and well trained, well groomed and pruned. We grow a wild bunch--35 plants this year. We started tomatoes from seed. Did you? Ours were pathetic, but we put them out any. They struggled. Looked awful, near death. Hubby brought 6 home from the nursery. Then it hailed and he brought more home. They are finally beginning to come out of their beating and with the rain last week look decent. You will have a good yield--more than you can use.

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  5. Your tomato plants are really tall and so fully of blooms. I only have one plant and it had a few blooms, then they all come off in a storm...I ended up with ONE tomato! You will have a nice crop I think! Don't know why they flower at the top only; so did mine...may just be the variety.

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  6. My tomato plants are flowering quite low down. Are you impressed ? Don't be, they are not very tall. I'll be lucky to get any fruit this year. Last year my plants were hitting the greenhouse roof by now, but this year they are not even half way up yet. I'm growing Gardeners Delight too. Good luck with your yield, your plants look really healthy.

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  7. Your tomatoes look wonderfully vigorous. I'm what you'd consider a lazy gardener. In the past few years we've had great luck with cherry tomatoes. Then last year the plant barely grew and had few fruit. This year started out the same even though it's been a sunnier and warmer spring and summer. Early on I decided to move it a couple of feet over and it's made all the difference. Apparently tomatoes are susceptible to stunted growth if not rotated. Who knew? Lesson learned.

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  8. Your tomatoes look fantastic. I can only hope that mine look as nice as yours...........eventually.

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  9. Kelli, I think the fact that your plants have not produced flower trusses low down is probably because they were too cold and had too little light in their early days. I have found this happens quite a lot with my plants, which I always grow early in the year. They usually come good later on though - even if this means they are top-heavy with fruit! I have a couple of fruits turning red now. Hooray!

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  10. Your toms look good Kelli - it won't be too long before you're scoffing them - I had my first Tumbling Tom today - 1 tomato so far this year - a bit pathetic - never mind!

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  11. Think you must be feeding the plants too much or there is a paucity of light. Trusses seem very far apart. I have recently started to blog and am including some garden articles.

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